A Japanese-themed underground wonderland

“We want to blow our guest’s minds. We want to give them an experience, not just a great night.”

It was going to be hard work, but we were up to the challenge and delivered on our commitment.

We astounded over 500 handpicked guests at ‘Underground’, an event held in the basement gallery of Melbourne’s world-renowned Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI).

Along with our partners at Peter Rowland Catering, Placesettings and Solution Entertainment, we created a space that brought to life a basement glamour nightclub that would encapsulate the Harajuku look and feel.

There were no boundaries and no budget, only one proviso: send the guests home with the feeling that they have partied for a night in Japan.

Three zones and one dynamic very open theme. Who could ask for anything more?

We wanted to create a truly subterranean look, so we started with the bar. When it comes to a bar 20 meters long, it’s no small task. We crowned the bar with a projected ceiling feature, made with standard projection screens and a series of five HD projectors filling the roof line with tailor made content.

Suspended LED billboards throughout the space evoked the Ginza look and feel. Like a portal to the world above, we brought the street underground. A mammoth wall of LCD monitors became a tribute to the ACMI’s gallery aspect with evoke turning this into a dynamic moving art installation with time lapse footage and Japanese inspired imagery. This also had the effect of showcasing the brilliance of the Peter Rowland food menu and the venue.

Send the guests home with the feeling that they have lived a night in Japan.

Inspired by vintage Japanese horror, the entire space was lit with sweeping light effects matched to clips from the classic ‘Godzilla’ films, all the while immersing our guests in hypnotic rhythm provided by the DJ’s.

The final zone was filled with imagery and light from a custom built, three level projection chandelier. Eight projectors filled the room with bright and brilliant imagery. This lighting adding the mood and sensation of being in the ‘Underground’ nightclub.